The fusion frontier

Professor Massimo Hilliard and Dr Ramon Martinez-Marmol grew up far from Queensland – Massimo in Naples, Italy, and Ramon in Catalonia, Spain. Their passion for biology led them both overseas as postdoctoral researchers: Massimo to the United States, and then Ramon to Australia. In 2015, they met at UQ’s Queensland Brain Institute, where Ramon joined the Meunier lab before moving to the Hilliard lab in 2020 as a Research Fellow. Together, they have been extending the limits of what is known or expected about neuronal fusion.   In this fascinating conversation, Massimo and Ramon explore: What happens when neurons fuse How viral infections, like Covid-19, can induce fusion, disrupting neural circuits The surprising role of a tiny, transparent roundworm, C.elegans, in advancing their research How the lab’s discoveries of critical molecular players, like fusogens, may one day revolutionise nerve injury repairAdvice for early-career researchers pursuing discovery scienceRelated resources SARS-CoV-2 infection and viral fusogens cause neuronal and glial fusion that compromises neuronal activityEFF-1-mediated regenerative axonal fusion requires components of the apoptotic pathwayFusogen-mediated neuron−neuron fusion disrupts neural circuit connectivity and alters animal behavior